


Face the Thing That Should Not Be

by ChrisLeon



Series: The Big Fix [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 19:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20395063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChrisLeon/pseuds/ChrisLeon
Summary: After his fight with the Mindflayer and weeks spent healing, Billy doesn't look the same as he used to. He's still trying to get used to it, luckily he's got some help.Part of a series, but can probably be read on its own.





	Face the Thing That Should Not Be

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Thing That Should Not Be by -you guessed it- Metallica

A long crack ran through the mirror, bisecting it almost perfectly diagonally before spidering into a smaller network of cracks in either corner. 

The broken glass only served to further distort the image staring back at him, the crack almost getting lost in the network of scars criss crossing his torso. The wounds themselves had healed, flesh had knitted back together and his ribs only ached on rainy days. But the scars remained. Branching out like some kind of macabre road map, they covered more than half his torso in stiff, shiny skin.

Billy brushed a hand down his chest, feeling the bumps and uneven texture of his skin. This had become somewhat of a ritual for him. When he’d first gotten out of the hospital, he’d avoided looking at himself as much as he could. But now, weeks after the fact, at least once a day he’d take his shirt off to look at himself. 

He wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for, it’s not like much changed from day to day. The scars weren’t going anywhere and his attempts at getting back into shape were going much slower than he liked. Spending more than a few minutes exercising caused a deep soreness to bloom in his abdomen and his muscles, atrophied as they were from his time spent in the hospital and healing, couldn’t handle anywhere near the amount of weight he was used to. The doctors had told him repeatedly not to push too hard, or risk doing himself permanent damage. He was trying to follow their advice, but everyday he looked in the mirror and saw a body he didn’t like and barely recognized. 

“Billy! Are you ready yet?” Max’s yelling broke him out of his trance, “C’mon, everyone’s meeting at the arcade at 2.” 

“Max!” He yelled, but it was already too late and she was pushing her way into his room uninvited. The T-shirt he planned on wearing that day was still lying on his bed and there was no way for him to pull it on in time.

“We’re gonna be-” she cut off mid-sentence, taking him in, “late,” she finished, softly. “Holy shit,” he wondered briefly is she meant to say that out loud. 

“We’re not gonna be late, Christ. And knock next time.” He picked his shirt up off the bed and tugged it on before she could say anything else. He pushed passed her out the door, stopping only briefly to grab his boots as she trailed him out to the car. He was sure to stay a few steps ahead of her, making it harder for her to say anything, but once they got in the car, he was trapped.

He kept his gaze firmly on the road, but he could still feel her staring at him from the passenger seat. Finally, he cracked, looking over at her.

“What?”

“Does it hurt?” 

“Does what hurt?”

She glared at him, “You know what.”

He opened his mouth, ready to reply with something biting and nasty, but he hesitated. They’d been getting along, actually getting along, not just tolerating each other and while part of him was still loathe to admit it, he liked being friends with her and he didn’t want to set them back with a pointless argument.

Sighing deeply, he replied, “Not anymore. Not really. If I push myself, physically, too much, then yes.”

She nodded, “Is that why you never go around shirtless anymore? Not that I miss it,” She added, “I’m glad you’ve finally learned how to be a real person and wear clothes, but it’s definitely different.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Figured it wasn’t a good idea anymore. Would raise too many questions. The moms of Hawkins will have to make do somewhere else.” It wasn’t completely a lie, his scars definitely couldn’t be explained by their cover story, so fewer people who saw them the better. Any other reasons he may have had, Max didn’t need to worry about.

She scrunched her nose up, “Gross. I still can’t believe you like attention so much that you’d just parade around like that.”

“I liked to think of it as a kind of community service.”

She made a gagging noise and he laughed as they pulled into the arcade parking lot. 

* * *

After dropping Max off with her friends, Billy got back in the car and headed to Steve’s place. His dad and Susan were out of town for the weekend, meaning he had Susan’s car and more freedom than he’d had in a while. Steve’s parents were in town at the moment, but he’d promised Billy that they wouldn’t be around for most of the day on Saturday. 

Billy parked the car down the block and walked to Steve’s house, not bothering with the front door and going around the side to the backyard where Steve had told him to come. 

Steve was stretched out across a lawn chair, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes. He must have heard Billy’s approach because he looked up and a wide smile broke out across his face. He hopped up off the chair and walked around to meet Billy, gripping him gently by the hips and pulling him in. 

“Hey,” he said brightly, placing a kiss on Billy’s lips. 

“Hey yourself, pretty boy.”

“Do you need to borrow swim trunks?” Steve asked. He himself was only wearing his bathing suit while Billy was conspicuously in jeans and a T-shirt. 

“Uh,” he looked down at himself, “Yeah, I guess.”

“Okay, come with me.” He grabbed Billy by the hand, leading him into the house. As promised, his parents were nowhere to be seen. He led Billy up the now-familiar route to his bedroom. He dug through a dresser drawer for a moment before triumphantly pulling out a pair of navy blue swim trunks. 

“Here you go,” He said, handing them to Billy, “I’ll let you get changed and then you can meet me out back.”He walked out the room, closing the door behind him and leaving Billy alone.

Billy stood uncomfortably in the middle of the room, twisting the shorts in his hands, but not putting them on. He and Steve had been doing this  _ thing _ of theirs for over a month now. It was hard to put a name to it; they were exclusive, but could you really call it dating if you couldn’t go on dates?

The point was, they’d been together, in some form, for weeks now, and Billy had been refusing to take his shirt off the entire time. Not to say they’d been taking things slowly, there had already been plenty of heavy over-the-clothes petting and a few rushed instances with their pants shoved around their knees. But Billy’s shirt had never come off. 

It was easy to hide at first, pushing Steve’s hands away and saying he wasn’t ready yet, but Steve, dumb as he may sometimes be, wasn’t stupid and he had picked up on it. Going out by the pool with a shirt on would surely raise suspicions, but the thought of letting Steve see- he couldn’t.

He kicked off his shoes and sat down on the bed to tug off his socks, followed quickly by his jeans and boxers. He pulled on the borrowed shorts. His T-shirt stayed. 

He headed back down to where Steve was sitting on the edge of the pool, lazily kicking his feet in the water. Billy dropped down next to him, letting their arms brush together. Steve leaned into him, the weight comforting on his side. 

“You don’t have to keep your shirt on,” he said, “No need for modesty here.”

“When have I ever been modest?” Billy replied, putting as much cocky playfulness into his voice as he could muster. 

“You tell me, you’re the one wearing a shirt out by the pool. You never missed an opportunity to take your shirt off when you were lifeguarding.” Steve’s tone was light and teasing, but he took one of Billy’s hands in his own and the rubbing motion of his thumb was almost unbearably gentle. Billy could tell he was prodding at the elephant in the room, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to acknowledge it. 

He kept his eyes locked on their joint hands. He squeezed tightly, but if Steve felt any discomfort, he didn’t let it show. “Well, in case you missed it, I’m not a lifeguard anymore.” He felt discomfort twist in his stomach, sure that Steve was about to broach the subject he most wanted to avoid.

“True,” he began, “You’re not. But I’d still let you give me mouth to mouth.”

Billy looked up at him, he hadn’t been expecting that response. Steve was looking back at him innocently, as if he hadn’t said anything unusual.

“You little-” Billy began in disbelief. Rather than finishing his sentence, he reached out quickly and got one arm around Steve’s back and the other under his knees. It took Steve a second too long to realize what Billy was about to do and he just barely got out a “Don’t you dar-” before Billy was hoisting him up and tossing him forward into the pool.

They were sitting by the shallow end, so it didn’t take much effort for Steve to right himself and as soon as he got his feet under him, he turned to Billy, now dripping wet and sputtering his outrage.

“What the hell was that for?”

“What?” Billy asked, carefully dropping into the pool. He waded towards Steve, who, despite his anger, didn’t stop Billy from coming close to him and placing his hands on his hips. “I’m just trying to help you live out your lifeguard fantasy. I can’t save you if you’re not in distress.”

“I don’t have a lifeguard fantasy.”

“Oh? Then why are you begging me to take my shirt off, hm?”

“Shut up, I wasn’t begging. I just,” he sighed heavily, “I want you to know it’s okay. You  _ used  _ to look for any excuse to take your shirt off. You don’t anymore.” He placed his hand on Billy’s hip, fingers sliding gently underneath the hem of his T-shirt. “And I don’t want to pressure you, but I also want you to know that you can.”

Billy huffed, trying to feign annoyance to hide the emotions clogging his throat. He pulled Steve closer, resting his head on the other boy’s shoulder so he didn’t have to look him in the eye when he answered.

“I don’t exactly look like that anymore,” he said, fingers tightening around Steve’s hips.

“You have scars?” It sounded like a question, but it wasn’t really. Steve had seen what happened to him, seen him in the hospital and the weeks after. How could he not have scars?

“Yeah, I have scars,” he mumbled into Steve’s collarbone, “And y’know,” he took one hand off Steve’s waist to gesture vaguely at his own torso.

“I know what?” Steve asked, sounding genuinely confused. 

Billy pulled back to meet Steve’s eyes for a second before looking down at the water lapping at their waists, feeling self-conscious in a way he never would have before. 

“It’s hard to work out when you can’t get out of bed. And when you have a couple of giant holes in your chest that need time to heal back together.”

Steve was silent for a moment, as if considering his words, before saying, “Is that what this is about?” He said, almost laughing in disbelief. 

Billy’s head snapped up, “I’m glad it’s funny for you, Harrington,” he said, pushing away from Steve.

“Hey, no. Come back,” Steve grabbed his hand, keeping Billy from going too far. “I’m not laughing at you. It’s just, did you think I wouldn’t want you if you didn’t have abs? Billy, babe, you know I don’t care about that.”

Billy shrugged, not meeting Steve’s eyes, but not pulling away again, either. “Just didn’t want you to get your hopes up.”

“Billy,” Steve said, coming closer and gently placing his hands back on Billy’s hips, this time letting his whole hand slide underneath the T-shirt, “I don’t care about you scars,” he punctuated his words by carefully moving his hands upwards and brushing his fingers against the uneven skin of his chest, “Or your muscles,” He leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on Billy’s lips, “I just want you.”

“You’re fucking sappy, you know that?” he asked, but still allowed Steve to pull him into a deeper kiss. Steve’s hands slid up higher under his shirt and he pulled back slightly to look Billy in his eyes, clearly questioning. Billy nodded, unable to find his voice, and Steve pulled the shirt up and over his head, tossing it back towards the patio. 

Steve made a soft noise as he took in the damage on his chest. Billy hunched his shoulders, feeling far too exposed for comfort. Carefully, Steve slid a hand upwards from the waistband of Billy’s borrowed shorts over across his chest, taking in the uneven bumps and valleys in his skin. 

“Not pretty, is it?” Billy asked. He tried to make it sound joking, but missed the mark.

Steve tore his eyes from Billy’s chest to look at his face, a soft smile on his face. “Pretty is definitely not the right word. But I do think it looks pretty badass.”

“Badass, huh?” Billy asked, unable to fight the smile tugging at his lips. To have Steve right there, looking at him, and not pulling away in disgust or disappointment, it was a better reality than any of the ways Billy imagined it happening. 

“Yeah,” Steve leaned forward to kiss him again, hands resting on his obliques, “Really sexy, too.” 

“You don’t have to lay it on so thick.”

“I’m not,” Steve mumbled against his lips, barely pulling far enough away to speak. “I mean it.” 

“So is that your thing then?” Billy asked, enjoying it too much to let it go, “Scars, not lifeguards?”

“Oh my god, I don’t have a  _ thing _ . Now stop being annoying and kiss me.” 

And while Billy may enjoy being annoying, when faced with a request like that, there was really only one option. Still grinning, he leaned in, allowing Steve to connect their mouths once again. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Come say hi](http://vgorodye.tumblr.com) on tumblr or let me know if there's something else you'd like to see from this series.


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